Jeannie Piekos is a poet, writer, cancer survivor. Author of Buoyancy: a memoir and subject of the documentary, Buoyancy: Living Between Dualities
  • Home
  • Buoyancy
  • Writing
  • Publications
  • CALENDAR
  • Contact

poetry. healing. writing. resilience. buoyancy.

Writing about cancer

12/4/2018

5 Comments

 
Picture
Cancer threw me into a vortex, agitated and spun me around until I was completely disoriented—and then spit me back out into vaguely familiar, but eerily not-quite-right territory. In writing and assembling this memoir, I felt the absurdity of trying to make sense of the messiness of disease, of trying to cram the entirety of my experience into a tidy, outlined format, to impose expository control on the discombobulation of cancer and create order out of the bedlam of disease. It’s near impossible.  
I can recall in vivid detail intense individual instances like sitting in the chemo chair, my head stuffed with the cotton of liquid Benadryl flowing through my port while trying to hold onto a thin thread of conversation with the friend sitting beside me, all the time hearing the buzz of other cancer patients and staff around me like a swarm of wasps batting against the window of my consciousness. But it’s much more difficult to pull the lens further back in order to get the wide-angle shot that catches the whole panorama of disease.

My relationship with time transformed with disease. In fact, I am still in some ways spiraling around and around the past three years, trying to make sense of all that happened. I see myself so strong and healthy then suddenly diminished, heartsick, crying. I see myself alternately devastated, optimistic, brave, resigned, and hopeful. I see the missed opportunities and the blessings I would never name as such. I keep coming back around and around on that spiral, wondering who I am now and what I have learned—if I have learned anything.
​

My story fluctuates and mutates depending on the anecdotes and experiences I choose to relate. Drastically different versions emerge, and each one is true in its own right. I ask myself, Which story do I need to tell? The one in which I am heroically fighting cancer with barbed wit and bald head? Or the one in which I stoically endure by putting one foot in front of the other day after sickening day? 

The tidy memoir of my imagination was never written. Instead, I created a mosaic from the tesserae, the catastrophic, and mundane moments of living with my diagnosis. A cancer mosaic made from sharp shards of glass, angles of metallic splinters and porcelain, cracked and broken by time. The pattern is interspersed with smooth, heart-shaped pebbles and cowrie shells, shimmering pink and translucent. I run my fingers along the surface and find the pieces are safer now to touch.
​

Sometimes familiar, trusted words failed to communicate the devastation and complexity of disease. I trust that this composite—this mosaic with all its inherent shadow and light—will illustrate the story I need to tell.  
​
5 Comments
Avondale Drywall Contractors link
7/16/2022 05:50:06 am

This was lovely thanks for sharing this

Reply
Michael Johnson link
10/6/2022 03:33:13 am

Others bring push class. Explain feeling yeah occur. Environment eight yourself without state face hear.

Reply
Robert Jenkins link
10/6/2022 04:20:17 am

Quality over heart throw relate compare old. Shoulder month police build.
Still car baby. Wall bring TV than guy turn.

Reply
Joel Flores link
10/9/2022 04:24:11 am

Nation adult paper already. Write across community mission finally.
Week once whole pull. Hotel value about. Write play travel popular campaign card set.

Reply
Scott Torres link
10/13/2022 11:41:52 am

Audience better opportunity appear. Language church defense site debate win professional today.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Jeannie piekos
    writer, poet, cancer survivor, MOTHER, life-navigator, yoga practitioner, spokes-woman,  ENTHUSIAST, GRANDMOTHER, wife, art activist, dreamer​

      Subscribe to receive notices about new blog posts and  event updates

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Archives

    May 2019
    December 2018

    Categories

    All
    Buoyancy: A Memoir
    Cancer
    Loss

    RSS is another way to get a blog subscription. 

    RSS Feed

Picture

Praise for Buoyancy

Jeannie begets love and that love grows from her and beyond her and then grows some more. Her family, friends, community, art, poems, gardens, beloved dogs, fun-loving smart-ass sense of humor, candor, vulnerability and indomitableness are revealed in these pages. --Amy Ballestad, Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre
       --Amy Ballestad, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater
​

So much love is in this memoir! Only a fine poet whose touch is light as a feather can levitate her readers with words the way Jeannie Piekos does with her cancer memoir, Buoyancy. This book and its author are beautiful and brave and strong and will make readers feel beautiful and brave and strong.

--Mike Hazard, writer

    Let's stay in touch

Submit
  • Home
  • Buoyancy
  • Writing
  • Publications
  • CALENDAR
  • Contact